We were invited to have afternoon tea with the Easter Bunny on Saturday at our local Wyevale Garden Centre, which is Melbicks. It’s something that the kids had been really looking forward to all week. Unfortunately, on Saturday Ben was poorly, so Graham stayed at home and my mum and I took the kids.

The event, which costs £9.99 for children and either £3.99 for a mini tea or £7.99 for a full afternoon tea for the adults. The event needs to be booked beforehand and you state your menu choices then. For the boys, we opted for sausage, mash and peas, and the full afternoon tea for the adults.

We had to be at the centre for 4pm, and got there about ten minutes before. We’ve been to Melbicks plenty times before, and it’s a great place for a mooch around on a Sunday (and beautiful at Christmas!). The tea was held in the restaurant. It was one large table, beautifully laid out with plastic cutlery, activity sheets and colouring crayons for the kids. There was also an envelope with the children’s names on it, which turned out to be an Easter card. I thought that was a really nice touch. There were jugs of squash on the table, and we were offered either a tea or a coffee. My mum’s tea was brought out to her, but my coffee was left on a table and no one told me it was there.

The two ladies who were serving us were dressed up as Alice in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts. Before long, ‘Flopsy’ the rabbit made an appearance! You’ll have to excuse the rubbish photos – I realised when we got there that my memory card for my camera was at home in the laptop!

The kids were unsure to begin with, but after giving him a few high 5’s, they soon relaxed around him. Whilst we were waiting for our food, they were encouraged to colour in an easter egg and put their details on the back to enter them into the competition. Unfortunately, we were sitting right opposite the soft play centre, which proved to be a huge distraction. Like most kids, Harrison and Alex love soft play and were constantly asking if they could go in there.

Dinner came, and the garden centre had got our order wrong. Instead of mash potato, they had given them chips. It’s not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things as they will eat chips, but we had already told the kids what they were going to be eating. We were offered a swap, but the kids were hungry and didn’t want to wait any longer so they had the chips. The meals were a decent size, and they enjoyed them.

Our tea followed and was a ‘proper’ afternoon tea, which was lovely. We each had two finger sandwiches, a scone with clotted cream and jam and some little cakes and macarons. The sandwiches had gone a little bit dry on top, which suggests to me that they had been left out for some time. Still, it was nice enough, especially the scone!

By the time the food came, I had finished my coffee so didn’t have a drink with it. It does say ‘one tea or medium coffee’ on the website, but I think it would have been better either with the meal, or one on arrival and one with the food.

The easter bunny did hover about whilst was we were eating, and I have to admit both my mum and I found that extremely irritating. Having someone standing right behind me and touching my neck and shoulders without asking me is something I really don’t like anyway (personal space please!!!) but certainly not when I’m eating. I think the boys also found it quite distracting – I had to keep drawing their attention back to their meals. I would rather the bunny have left us alone or sat somewhere at the table during the meal.

Once everyone had eaten (there were four other mums with children at the table), ‘Flopsy’ disappeared. Alice took the children around the centre to look for clues to find him. The parents could stay at the table, but I hovered along at the back -I’m very cautious about letting them go off with someone I don’t know. I have to say I was very glad I did – I tried to stay a few steps behind so not to get in the way, but Alice didn’t check once that they were still there. In fact, Alex had wandered off quite a way before she noticed and called him back. The one girl was older than the boys and the other little girl there, and her mum worked at the garden centre, and she seemed to get all of the attention. Harrison and Alex didn’t get a look in. We eventually found the rabbit, who presented the children with a lovely little cuddly toy bunny and a beautiful egg filled with mini eggs.

When we got back to the table, there were egg-shaped biscuits with icing and sweets to decorate with. Harrison and Alex really enjoyed doing this!

Overally, I think it is pretty good value for money – the food was nice, and there were plenty of things to keep the children entertained. The kids really enjoyed it and have talked about Flopsy all weekend. I just think the shine was taken off it a little for me by the constant touching by the bunny.

You can check availabity and book your afternoon tea or breakfast with the Easter bunny by clicking here.

*We were invited to this event free of charge for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are our own.